I recently did a movie review for Carter Davidson, “East by North East“. While watching the 70-minute DVD, there are several breaks throughout the movie where Maine humorist, Joe Perham, is heard spinning a fishing yarn of some sort. He tells a fairly quick hitting one which is one of my favorites. It goes something like this.

A feller went bass fishing over on Moose Pond. He was having a good time – how good might be a bit subjective but he suddenly realizes he’s out of bait and isn’t sure what to do.

Looking around, he spots a snake not but a few paces from where he’s standing and observes a frog hanging partly out of the snakes mouth. Reacting quickly, perhaps in much the same way he would react toward anything, he reaches behind him and yanks out a flask of whiskey and abruptly pours a shot down the throat of the snake hoping it would give up the frog.

Sure enough! The snake relinquished the frog and slithered away. The old feller used the frog as bait and wouldn’t you know it, caught a 4 1/2 pound bass with it. But his frog was now gone.

Wondering, the feller looked back over his shoulder and somewhat to his surprise the snake was back. This time with two frogs in its mouth.

Tom Remington

As all of you probably already know, the New England Patriots lost in the Super Bowl yesterday, which you know led to a lot of tempers flaring. When that happens humans exude tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere raising the earth’s temperature. You know that the snow and ice of New England must be running down the drains today.

But I am here to tell you about my effort to keep my Super Bowl Sunday “green”.

When I wake up, my normal routine is to take a shower, shave, put on clean clothes, open up an ice cold bottle of Pepsi-Cola, sit down in front of my computer and begin reading emails. The Pepsi makes me burp and fart further adding to global warming and when I read my emails, which includes comments on this blog and others, I get mad often emitting huge quantities of hot air and releasing uncontrolled bursts of flatulence. But not this day.

I skipped my shower because I knew I would be saving water and using less hot water meant saving energy. To heck with any clean clothes, the dirty ones were good enough. I didn’t want to have to unnecessarily waste more water, energy and pollute the earth with soap from the washing machine.

I really didn’t know if antiperspirant was carbon friendly or not, so I took my solid stick out to my wife and stuck it under her nose to smell. “Does that smell like it’s carbon neutral to you?” I asked.

My perfect plan for having a super green Super Bowl Sunday began to go up in flames when my wife began screaming at me asking me what in the hell I thought I was doing. I told her to calm down before she killed another polar bear. Regardless, my wife didn’t really respond in a way that helped me to figure out about the antiperspirant, so I took matters into my own hands and used some simple logic.

I figured it this way. If I used the pit stop, I might actually over heat even if ever so slightly because I do know that the body acts like its own thermostat and regulates better when it sweats. I put the deodorant stick back in the bathroom, took a whiff under my arms and concluded that even though it wasn’t the most pleasant smell, I couldn’t help but think about the polar/grizzly hybrid bear that got shot a couple years ago because it seems that this never would have happened if I’d stopped using antiperspirant a long time ago.

I wanted awfully to use my new-at-Christmas Remington electric shaver because it’s so cool but as I reached for it, I was overcome with guilt. Think of the native brook trout in Northern Maine dying because the water’s now too warm. I looked in the mirror and once again utilized some rational thinking. “I’ve seen worse”, and I knew my friends would understand.

I thought some of going to the bathroom, you know a number two, that’s part of the morning routine, but I wondered if I held it in and tried to go only like twice a week if that would save a spotted owl? I pinched it off and went about my business.

Our plan for the day was to drive over to Plant City and go to the flea market, the farmer’s market, out to lunch and back to Plant City to watch the Super Bowl. My wife and I planned to travel to Plant City in our very green Toyota Corolla – 35 miles to the gallon. (Cue Kermit the Frog singing, “It’s not easy being green.”) Oh but it is……but wait. I had a better idea.

(In a low whisper so Al Gore doesn’t hear me.) I also own a Plymouth van, but wait, wait before you start demanding I pay fines and an extra carbon tax, I calculated out the carbon savings. Even though I would use more gas in my van than my Toyota, if I took it, everyone could ride with me and think of the gas I’d save. My, God! I just saved another baby seal!

Arriving in Plant City, I announced that we could all ride in my van but no unnecessary talking (carbon dioxide you know) and definitely no farting. I was still pinching real hard and by god everyone else could make some kind of sacrifice.

Traveling to the flea market, I remembered that the flea market and farmer’s market were about 4 miles apart by road. I suggested that we park someplace central and walk about two miles to the flea market, return to the van and walk the other two miles to the farmer’s market. If we did that, we could save another Chiricahua leopard frog. I think my friends weren’t seeing things my way. No wonder the earth is coming to an end. What, the 85-year old lady who walks with a cane can’t suck it up and “git-r-done”? Phhfit!

I want to tell you it is one hell of a sacrifice to walk around a flea market and the farmer’s market, a total of about 4 hours without farting at least once. I did drink a Pepsi at the farmer’s market and I had all I could do to keep from burping. I was sweating like an over worked butcher in August and I wasn’t feeling the love, brother.

I figured most everyone at the farmer’s market was right into saving our planet because I noticed they must be self-regulating their body temperatures too. Way to go Juan and Pablo.

I felt really badly and I knew I had to find a way of making up for the dent I put in our carbon footprint when everyone took a vote to go eat at Checkers – “You Gotta Eat”. But I got thinking about how PETA and others are saying we can help save the planet by going on a vegan diet. Part of the reason they say is because there are too many cows farting and pooping on this earth. Doesn’t it stand to reason that if we eat enough beef, we’ll kill off all the cows?

I filled my gastro-intestinal track with two double bacon cheddar burgers, fries and another Coke? I was feeling like I may explode.

Finally we made it back to our friends with at least 4 hours before kick off. Everyone decided to lay down and take naps but not me, mister. I know what can happen while you’re sleeping – uncontrolled seepages of methane gas and other things. I stayed awake being very conscious not to breathe heavily and debating how many plants and animals I would kill if I logged on to my friend’s computer on a Sunday.

I would guess I maintained about a carbon neutral level of emissions during the game. I had to eat again but I was careful what I consumed – mostly because I had to go to the bathroom real bad now. But all around me everyone was angry and yelling at the officials and saying awful, evil things about Ely Manning. I interrupted a couple times, having to yell to get their attention (yeah I know but critical moments require critical thinking), to tell them to calm down or they would be sure to kill a gray wolf in Pocatello, Idaho.

I remained very calm and said very little when Plaxico Burris caught the winning touchdown. It was actually a spiritual moment for me. I became one with the forests of the Amazon jungle. The truth is if I let it out I was really going to let it out.

I staggered home, setting my cruise control on 55 in order to save a Canada lynx and eased back into the high-back van seat to listen to my wife keep asking me why everyone around me was blowing their horns at us.

I settled into bed around 11:30 p.m. and hoped that morning would come very quickly, so I could go to the bathroom.

Tom Remington

Yesterday aired the fourth Open Air broadcast and I had some fun. I played a bit of a DJ while spinning a few of Maine humorist Joe Perham’s CDs and telling a tale or two of my own. I had fun and I think you will enjoy the stories as well.

Here are your options. You can stream the audio right here by clicking on the player button below or you can go to this link and select the October 4, 2007 show date to either listen to on your own computer’s media player or you can right-click and save it to play at a later time.

[AUDIO:http://www.skinnymoose.com/downloads/openair10-4.mp3]

Tom Remington

Two men were ice fishing at Deerfield Lake, South Dakota. Both men hooked the same fish at the same time. The one with the 6-pound test line broke, leaving one fisherman, Ryan Rempfer, with his 3-pound test line to figure out how to get the fish up through the ice.

The fish weighed 11 pounds and 3 ounces and measured 30 inches breaking the old South Dakota record of 9 pounds and 3 ounces caught on the same lake.

Get all the details here. Good story.

Tom Remington

Austin Kenyon caught a small-mouth bass on September 2, 2006. He had it weighed on state certified scales which recorded the weight at 9.32 pounds, besting the previous state record of 8.75 pounds from a bass caught in 1966.

But there was something fishy about this story. There are “standards” if you will that help officials determine physical dimensions and characteristics of a fish. In other words, if you measured the length and girth of a fish, a trained expert could probably determine the weight of the fish within a few ounces. Things didn’t seem to add up.

Couple that with the fact that two of Kenyon’s “buddies” signed statements saying that the fish had been tampered with. The state has now ruled that the fish had been filled with lead weights at the time it was recorded.

State officials wanting to further investigate the fish were too late. It had already been mounted on Kenyon’s wall.

Tom Remington